Digitizing the Non-Digital: Creating a Global Context for Events, Artifacts, Ideas, and Information

Deborah L. MacPherson

Abstract

This paper discusses some of the problems associated with search and digital-rights management in the emerging age of interconnectivity. An open-source system called Context Driven Topologies (CDT) is proposed to create one global context of geography, knowledge domains, and Internet addresses, using centralized spatial databases, geometry, and maps. The same concept can be described by different words, the same image can be interpreted a thousand ways by every viewer, but mathematics is a set of rules to ensure that certain relationships or sequences will be precisely regenerated. Therefore, unlike most of today’s digital records, CDTs are based on mathematics first, images second, words last. The aim is to permanently link the highest quality events, artifacts, ideas, and information into one record documenting the quickest paths to the most relevant information for specific data, users, and tasks. A model demonstration project using CDT to organize, search, and place information in new contexts while protecting the authors’ intent is also introduced.